The grave allegations continue to trickle in as Zulfiqar Mirza’s travelling political spectacle gains popular momentum.

At a massive public gathering in Lyari on Friday, the former home minister claimed he had apprehended target killers from ‘sector offices’ with heavy arms and ammunition but had to release them on Rehman Malik’s orders.

In a fiery speech at the end of a several-hour-long rally across the city, Mirza alleged that Malik had warned him that the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence would topple the government if target killers were arrested.

“I released the killers because I wanted to see Pakistan flourish,” Mirza said to an enthralled audience.

Calling the federal interior minister a “Jewish and an American agent working to destroy Pakistan,” Mirza said Malik’s “drama would continue until the disintegration of Pakistan.”

Malik used to misinform Benazir Bhutto earlier and he is doing the same with the president and prime minister now, Mirza alleged.

In a brazen call to arms, Mirza said he was ‘proud’ to have issued 300,000 weapon licences during his tenure.

“I gave the arms licences to the people of Karachi, not for aerial firing at wedding ceremonies but for times like these when no one is safe,” he said.

Expletives galore

Mirza’s public gathering in Lyari, termed the largest since Benazir’s rally in the area in 1987, was also addressed by chief of Sindh Nationalist Party (SNP) Ameer Bhumbhro and key leaders of the defunct People’s Amn Committee Uzair and Zafar Baloch.

Bhumbhro’s platitudes were followed by an initially-hesitant Zafar Baloch who went on to deliver an expletive-laden tirade against dictators, Rehman Malik and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Uzair Baloch followed, expressing his dissatisfaction at the provincial PPP leadership for conducting an operation in Lyari.

“Ishratul Ebad is the most corrupt governor the province ever had,” Mirza alleged, adding that chairman Malir Development Authority had admitted during an investigation that Ebad was his partner in the project and was allotted 27,000 plots in the scheme.

He added that he had turned down MQM’s request for inducting 6,000 ‘criminals’ in the police force.

Mirza also said he would expose the name of the “airhostess” for whom Rehman Malik visits Karachi frequently.

Earlier, Malik had directed Inspector General Sindh Police to depute a senior officer to protect Mirza’s rally. Bringing out a rally is a right of every citizen or political leader and it was the duty of law enforcers to protect them, Malik had said.